N.J. city reaches cleanup agreement with smelter company

Dec. 29, 2012
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Homes on Chrome Avenue in Carteret, N.J., used to be across the street from a U.S. Metals smelter site. USA TODAY tested soil samples from yards and public rights of way in the Chrome neighborhood. Many of those tests showed elevated lead levels. / By Eileen Blass, USA TODAY

by Alison Young, USA TODAY

by Alison Young, USA TODAY

The borough of Carteret, N.J., has reached an agreement with the owner of an old metals-refining factory to ensure the company investigates and cleans up potential contamination in the yards of nearby homes and other areas, Mayor Daniel Reiman announced late Thursday.

The owners of the former U.S. Metals Refining factory complex have agreed to do soil testing and cleanup work of soil contaminated by the factory's former operations, Reiman said. And the company will pay the borough $1 million over the five-year span of the agreement to cover the borough's oversight and other costs.

"This agreement gives the borough the leverage and oversight powers to ensure that both the regulators and the company do the right thing in terms of protecting public health," said Bradley Campbell, the private environmental attorney who represents Carteret.

The parent company of the former factory, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold said in a statement that the company is pleased to have reached the agreement "and will now be able to focus our attention on the Carteret soil testing and replacement program."

Campbell said the testing could begin in four to six weeks, weather permitting. The investigation and any cleanup will be under the supervision of either the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection or the Environmental Protection Agency. The agreement calls for information sharing with borough officials, who could still sue if they disagree with the actions being taken.

The action came after USA TODAY reported in its Ghost Factories series in April that the newspaper's soil tests near the former U.S. Metals Refining found elevated levels of lead in a neighborhood that begins across the street. Although state regulators oversaw a cleanup of the factory's property years ago, they had never enforced an order requiring off-site testing until informed of the newspaper's findings.

Carteret officials, saying they'd lost faith in state regulators, filed a required legal notice on April 26 of its intent to do its own enforcement of pollution laws. The agreement reached Nov. 26 and announced Thursday avoids the filing of a lawsuit under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, unless Carteret officials and the company have a disagreement going forward.

The massive factory complex, which refined copper and other metals from about 1901 to 1986, had spewed toxic metals into the air for decades, records show. It also had a lead plant for a while. Although state regulators had overseen the cleanup of contamination within the factory's property boundaries, they had never enforced a 1988 cleanup order that required, among other things, the company investigate the extent of contamination emanating from its property, records show.

In December 2011, after being informed of USA TODAY's soil tests, the New Jersey DEP told the company to do testing in the surrounding area.

Larry Hajna, a New Jersey DEP spokesman, said: "What is most important is that the off-site investigation ensures protection of public health and the environment, which was the path that we embarked on last year."